A Trial Period for SEO – How long Should it be?

February 17, 2020

Trial Period for SEO – How long Should it be?
Unfortunately, we have some customers coming through the door telling us that they’re giving us a 3-month trial for SEO. For clarification purposes – this is a very short length of time to do all the necessary changes and rank your website high.

Typically, customers have either had a bad experience or managed the SEO campaign internally before they contact us.

Generally, there a snag list which needs to be addressed, whether it is on-page SEO work, off-page (link building) or general internet marketing updates.

Generally, a SEO audit will uncover the list of items which need worked on and analysed. Finding the best way forward is important as there has to be a priority list of SEO work needed to be done.

Usually customers will have done little to no research for their desired keywords, no competitor analysis and not edited their website suitably to comply with Google’s strict quality guidelines.

Expecting any SEO company to undertake all of this work in 3 months and rank your website is not the right amount of time to give to a team of SEO consultants.

WHAT IS THE RIGHT AMOUNT OF TIME FOR A TRIAL?
The impact of SEO work takes roughly 9 – 12 months, depending on the website niche.

Some industries are more difficult than others, and it’s often that you’ll need to do something different to beat competition. This could be in relation to backlinks, content and technical tweaks needed for the website.

SKILL SET FOR A SUCCESSFUL SEO CAMPAIGN
Successful digital marketing campaigns aren’t created by freelancers doing a single task over and over again. These campaigns are managed by multiple people and required input across the range of skillsets below:

WHY YOUR WEBSITE HASN’T RANKED
Maybe you are not giving the SEO company which you hired enough time to deliver on the results.

We often see client’s coming in to the office and complaining about their last SEO company, the way they communicated, the emails they sent, the ranks they achieved, or didn’t.

Expecting to get a large piece of work done within 3 months isn’t feasible and you should reconsider the project time allocation if that’s the case.

If you’re starting a new brand or company then it’s going to be a competitive environment to launch a business online, especially with retailers such as Amazon and eBay on the SERPs (search engine results pages). Luckily, there are ways to acquire traffic, out rank competition and rank for longer tail keywords (with more relevant search intent).

Finally, no matter how long (or short) any trial period for SEO you negotiate, no SEO company can offer Guaranteed SEO Results. Period! If they do then our advice is to walk away.